There’s a lot unfolding in this unerringly cheerful album, (a follow up, after a manner, to 2008’s Stramash), as Steele and friends cover several strands of Scottish folk and run them through a bit of New Orleans and some Harlem Swing. Much of the credit for the success of the album must go to arranger Dave Milligan whose charts cause the music to flow beautifully across the tracks, using simple lead and rhythm section, at times, and swinging the whole dectet at others. At times the folk and jazz elements are set up in contrast with each other and at others each is used to add background colour as the other dominates. Sometimes it’s just a grand stramash as the two elements barge into and through the other, inviting the listener to try and separate and follow individual threads if he can. Most of all, this is a celebration of Scotland and Scottishness and of the current high profile of Scottish jazz, as, at the moment there are considerably more successful Scottish musicians than could fit into a large motor home.
Opener Declaration of Arbroath is like a warm
up as each of the band seems to be stretching their collective musical muscles.
The Declaration was an invitation to the Pope to recognise Scotland as an
independent nation and here the uncertainty about the rightness of what the
Lairds have done is overcome by a light stepping surety, full of hope and
cheer. This faith is carried in the warmth of the brass and the charge of the
fiddles, all of which are part of a broader picture which is cinematic, yet
still human in scale.
The jazz/folk mash up
comes to the fore in Elgin Laddie which
sounds like it should be two tunes; one a rolling '50s Blue Note meets New
Orleans stomp and the other a roaring, escapist, fiddle uproar but it works!
There is some furious baton passing but as the piece traverses the two
contrasting sets of roots the two come closer together and the origins blur in
a joyous romp. Benromach, is another
feat of intermingling as, in the course of one piece of music it evolves from
traditional images of pipes in the open air to a driving urban groove with all
the voices contributing.
Even at their most jazz
infused there is room for unusual voices that keep the music rooted in
Scotland, such as the scratchy fiddle that opens the, otherwise, strongly
American high stepping funk soul of Fergus
which owes as much to Steely Dan as it does to the great Glen. It’s an album of moods as well and Fergus is followed by Covesea Bay’s inviting warmth and its
‘dimming of the day’ fade out, which is, in turn followed by the lush
romanticism of Song From Long Ago
Closer, Bangers and Stramash is a swaggering rough
and tumble rhythm and blues with the lead baton being frantically passed
between the players with an urgency that sound, at times as if the right to
solo is being snatched rather than surrendered with Steele and the strings jousting
cheerfully and laying down a series of challenges for those following to take
on. I could happily have taken another five or ten minutes of this track in
particular.
And what of Colin Steele
himself? Where does he figure in all of this? Most obviously he takes the
composers credit for all of the music and appears as part of the ‘jazz’
contingent, though often closely allied with Phil Bancroft and his tenor.
Steele’s trumpet sound is lovely and round, (Song
From Long Ago), piercing at other times, (such as on Fergus), though usually more warm and melodic as on ….Arbroath. He rarely dominates, for
example on Earl of Hospitalfield, his
is an answering voice to an invitation from the strings to a whirl around the
dancefloor. Clearly, what is more important to Steele is the ensemble, the
collection of voices and the arrangements. His hopes for these are well met on Stramash II.
All in all, it’s a joyous 50 minutes and its defiance comes from that joy as an act of resistance. And that’s before we get on to the onomatopoeic title as, rarely has an album sounded more of a stramash, an uproar, a tumult or a brawl! Dave Sayer
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